Pinduoduo, the Chinese e-commerce giant, announced on Tuesday that it would donate $1.5 billion in future profits to charity, leading to shares in the company rising by over one-fifth, reports the Financial Times. The announcement came after Pinduoduo posted its first quarterly profit since its initial public offering three years ago.
According to the FT, Pinduoduo, which pledged to contribute towards the development of agriculture until its donations reached RMB 10 billion ($1.54 billion), became the latest Chinese tech group to make a high-profile foray into philanthropy amid a regulatory assault on the sector.
Tencent announced last week that it would set aside RMB 50 billion for a “common prosperity program”, a declaration that followed calls by President Xi Jinping to foster “common prosperity” in the face of growing social inequality.
“Agriculture has long been at the core of Pinduoduo’s corporate mission and strategy and the [initiative] we announced today is a way for us to deepen our support for agricultural modernization and rural vitalization,” said Chen Lei, Pinduoduo chair and chief executive.
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